1. Using the best senario, video is shot digitally. Compression is not a factor this way, and there are may good cameras. If you already have a BetaSP camera then use it. But if you are going to get one, get the Canon XL-1. Get one that has PROGRESSIVE SCAN mode. Very important. But if you have an analog source then you can select the compression that works best for you.(posted 9085 days ago)2./3. If you have a camera purched in the USA then it is most likely NTSC, unless you bought one in New York or San Francisco, in which case it is very easy to get PAL. If you buy NTSC it divides each minute of tape into 60 parts called fields. It then interpolates every two fields into one, ultimately leaving 30 frames per second. Without explanation, this is bad. PAL divides each minute into 50 parts, then combines every two fields into 25 remaining frames. Since this is very close to film's 24 frames per second there is a way to speed up the film slightly to match speeds perfectly and therefore not drop any frames. (no dropframe is good) But the best solution is to buy a progressive scan PAL camera. It shoots 25 full frames per second. No feilds, no dividing and joining, no motion blur and no kooky artifacts. This is the best. PAL also has 100 extra lines of resolution so the image is way better. However be careful due to the fact that there are about 10 different kinds of PAL standards since the whole rest of the world uses it except for us. Europe used D1 PAL wich is a good one. Then if you want a video copy, just use a NTSC/PAL VCR that can record either end result from either source.
4. Film has its own grain. If you want to make video look like film you can render grain and other things into it with software programs.
5. You then can have as good a copy made as money can buy.
Brian Meade